What made it unusual is that earlier in the campaign, Todd was listed on the Web site of Armstrong’s opponent, Bryan Cutler, as Cutler’s municipal coalition head.


“I like to be positive,” Todd said Saturday. “It seemed like Bryan was dwelling so much on everything Gib was doing wrong.”


Meanwhile, Cutler was calling “below the belt” a controversy that cropped up at a town meeting in Conestoga Friday night about his stand on pro-life issues, which he said was instigated by Armstrong supporters.


The twists and turns in the 100th District primary are being mirrored in legislative races across the county as candidates sprint to the wire on Tuesday.


What makes this primary especially convoluted is the anti-incumbency sentiment generated by last year’s legislative pay raise, which could be a factor in several races.


An IssuesPA/Pew poll released last week showed 49 percent of Pennsylvanians are dissatisfied with the way the state is being run. And when they were asked to pick one word to describe the Legislature, 69 respondents, the most who volunteered a description, said “greedy.”


Only in the 41st state House district is an incumbent, Katie True, considered to be comfortably ahead of a challenger — in this case, Jim McDonald, who’s backed by Operation Clean Sweep.


In the rest of the races, here’s a synopsis of some of the key factors.


36th Senate District While the 48th Senate District race (see related story, A4-5) degenerated into negativity far earlier, there are signs that the race to replace retiring Sen. Noah Wenger is heading south too.


Both endorsed Mike Brubaker and challenger Heidi Wheaton last week issued press releases decrying dirty campaigning by the other side.


Wheaton’s campaign put up a TV ad accusing Brubaker, an agribusinessman, of voting to double taxes as a Warwick Township supervisor.


Brubaker’s campaign riposted: “(P)roving once and for all that her campaign is in an unstoppable downward spiral after spending close to a quarter-million dollars of her own money and having nothing to show for it, a desperate Wheaton campaign decided to go negative in the race for the 36th Senate District.”


A Brubaker mailing, meanwhile, drew flak from Wheaton for pointing out that Wheaton moved here from Chicago, for claiming the two candidates share most major conservative positions and even for a distorted photo of Wheaton.


“What makes a campaign that claims to be leading by wide margins risk public support by playing Photoshop tricks on Heidi Wheaton’s face?” asked Wheaton spokesman Jim Hughes.


“... This mailer is offensive to the tens of thousands of Lancastrians who fell in love with this region and decided to stay here to work and raise a family.”


Spending by the two campaigns is well past the $400,000 mark, driven largely by Wheaton’s air war. The TV and radio blitz is intended to raise Wheaton’s name recognition. But what will determine the winner on Tuesday is turnout. And that’s where Wheaton has the biggest challenge.


The party endorsement means Brubaker can count on GOP committee members across the sprawling district to push his voters to the polls.


Wheaton will need a get-out-the-vote, or GOTV, organization of her own to match the party’s.


Thanks to the anti-incumbency sentiment this year, though, party endorsement might not be the asset that it normally is.


Brubaker has another plus: a network of family ties and agriculture acquaintances to support him.


Advantage: Brubaker.





37th House District




This contest between three-term incumbent Tom Creighton and challenger Henry Federowicz has been bizarre from the start. Federowicz, a Mount Joy Township resident who owns a Hummelstown beer distributorship, got into the race after Creighton, one of the most conservative members of the House, voted for the pay raise last July.


Creighton later apologized and supported repeal of the raise, but it’s uncertain whether voters have forgiven him. He almost didn’t get to find out. Federowicz supporters challenged the validity of Creighton’s nominating petitions, in a case that went all the way to the state Supreme Court — and the high court didn’t rule until May 2 that Creighton could stay on the ballot.


Federowicz is backed by Operation Clean Sweep, the anti-incumbent activist group, but he doesn’t have high name recognition in the very conservative 37th.


The best guess is that Creighton survives this scare, although Creighton himself has described the race as close.




96th House District




The faceoff between Republicans Patrick Snyder, who’s endorsed, and Keith Charles in the city-based 96th has largely gotten lost in the shuffle of the other primary contests.


Republicans tend to think Snyder, a School District of Lancaster board member, has the edge over Charles, a businessman without long ties to the city. Snyder was elected to the school board just before the explosion over then-superintendent Ric Curry, who eventually went to federal prison on a fraud charge.


Still, Snyder is considered the odds-on favorite on Tuesday. The winner earns the right to meet incumbent Democrat Mike Sturla, whose survival skills in the political jungle are legendary, in the fall.




97th House District




Republicans say this race, between incumbent Roy Baldwin and endorsed candidate John Bear, is too close to call. It’s also getting nasty in its own right.


Baldwin lost the party’s endorsement over his vote for the pay raise, even though he also backed away in the face of a barrage of criticism, to Bear, a management consultant and Lititz Borough Council member.


As in the 36th, each side accuses the other of going negative. Baldwin argued that Bear started it, but that his campaign has countered recently.


The incumbent has financial backing from the House Republican Campaign Committee, and there has been a recent round of mailings and TV commercials sharply critical of Bear. The most recent ad blames Bear for a tax increase in Lititz; some of Bear’s colleagues and former colleagues on borough council issued a release a week ago defending Bear. In this race, anti-pay-raise sentiment converges with party backing, which should mean Baldwin is in trouble.


It remains to be seen, though, whether controversy involving the Republican committee in Manheim Township affects the outcome in the legislative race. Nine of 44 committee members have challengers on Tuesday, mainly reflecting divisions over the school board’s high school reconstruction project.


Will township voters, the largest bloc in the district, take out their dissatisfaction with the committee on an endorsed candidate like Bear?


Will Baldwin supporters’ contention that Bear is too socially conservative for the more-moderate 97th stick? Plus, Baldwin, the guy who beat incumbent Jere Strittmatter in 2002 against even steeper odds, can’t be counted out yet.




100th House District




The intensity level in the southern end ratcheted up last week with the endorsement of Armstrong by Todd.


The Colerain supervisors’ chairman had introduced Cutler at the campaign kickoff announcement in November.


Todd said his letter for Armstrong, which credits the incumbent for his Marine experience, his help on getting money for improvements at the Buck intersection and his intervention in a dispute between the state Department of Environmental Protection and Colerain Township, doesn’t mean Todd is happy with Armstrong’s performance.


Armstrong has been willing to listen to his criticisms, Todd said, while Cutler, whom Todd has known since Cutler was a child, hasn’t been as receptive.


The Cutler campaign has been on the attack most of the spring.


“I just have a problem with someone only tearing the other guy down and not coming up with solutions,” Todd said. He said he is doing what he thinks is best for Colerain residents.


“It’s not easy to change horses in the middle of the road,” he acknowledged. “I knew Bryan in the private sector. The private sector and the public sector — there seems to be a big difference there.”


Cutler, who argued Armstrong has been having the Republican State Committee do his negative campaigning for him, said if Todd thinks Armstrong’s record on taking legislative perks is best for the township, “then he should by all means support him.”


Another late factor emerged from Cutler’s town meeting Friday night in Conestoga Township. Cutler was asked about the Terri Schiavo case, in which Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed after a battle between her husband and parents.


The question, Cutler said, came from a woman who identified herself as an Armstrong supporter.


He replied that his parents, who had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, both had living wills, and he “had chosen to honor their request and suspend medical treatment” after their conditions worsened. Schiavo did not have a living will. Cutler charged that sending representatives to ask such a question is “a desperate act by a very troubled person.” But the woman, Joanne Celotto, a pro-life activist in the Conestoga area, denied telling Cutler she was an Armstrong supporter and said she asked the question for clarification for a church group. Local pro-life leader Rosie Gross backed up Celotto’s version.


Celotto said she introduced the subject because one of Cutler’s supporters, Solanco Sun-Ledger columnist Bill Rudick, has written in support of Schiavo’s husband, who wanted the tube removed.


“That’s not 100 percent pro-life,” she said.


Meanwhile, East Drumore Township supervisor chairman V. Merril Carter, a Cutler supporter, wrote a letter to the editor last week critical of Armstrong and his father, state Sen. Gib E. Armstrong, R-13th District, for not inviting East Drumore representatives to a May 6 press conference announcing the Buck intersection improvements. “This looks like a self-serving political stunt by our state representative, who is supposed to represent all of the 100th District,” Carter wrote.


“The fact is the majority of the ground work and planned reviews were completed in 2000 and 2001, before Rep. Armstrong took office. Money was available for this project at that time.”


John Barley, who resigned under unexplained circumstances in 2002, was the 100th legislator then.


“I think the timing is suspect,” Cutler agreed.


Stay tuned. There are still two days to go. blog comments powered by Disqus